by John Whitman
CHAPTER 7
Tash threw herself on the ground and covered her ears with her hands. The
scream seemed to come from all around her. As it finally faded, she realized
that what she had heard were the echoes of some terrible cry.
Beside her, Zak had fallen to the ground too. As he struggled to his
feet, he whispered, "Wh-What was that?"
The old woman, Domisari, was already out of her little camp and running
for one of the many passageways leading from the solarium. "It came from down
here!"
By the time Zak, Tash, and Deevee had caught up with her, all the other
treasure hunters had joined them, along with ForceFlow and Uncle Hoole. Only
Dannik Jerriko was missing. The passageway narrowed, and soon they were
hurrying single file down a gangway that zigzagged into the bowels of the
space station.
"Are you sure it came from here?" Tash whispered to Domisari. "How could
you tell with all those echoes?"
"Good ears," was all the old woman said in reply.
The passageway quickly grew cold. Several of the treasure hunters ignited
small glow rods, but it stayed chilly.
"Has anyone ever been down here before?" ForceFlow asked.
All the treasure hunters shook their heads. One said, "Naw, this was
Mangol's territory. None of us wanted to come down here. Too cold."
The farther they got from the solarium, the colder it became. Before
long, Tash could see her breath in the dim light of the glow rods.
"Watch it!" someone yelled.
A chasm opened before them, its smooth walls broken only by a steep,
almost ladder like stairway.
"Ventilator shaft," ForceFlow guessed. "That's why it's so cold here.
Watch your step. That shaft could be two kilometers deep. There's no sign of a
bottom."
One by one, the group descended the stairs. ForceFlow went first,
followed by Domisari and the other treasure hunters. Zak followed, then Tash.
Uncle Hoole and Deevee brought up the rear. Tash waited her turn and then
slowly walked down, clutching the cold railing, listening as each step made a
dull clank on the metal.
The stairs ended at an opening in the wall. Gratefully, lash stepped away
from the chasm on the other side of the stairs and toward the light of waiting
glow rods. ForceFlow and the other treasure hunters had gathered around
something lying on the floor.
"What is it?" Tash asked.
One of the treasure hunters pointed down and said, "Mangol."
The dim light spilled down onto a body. It was the grizzled treasure
hunter Zak and Tash had spoken to. He was lying on his back, his face twisted
into a mask of horror. His right hand clutched his chest. In his left he held
something Tash had only seen in museums. It was a small rectangular object
made up of thin leaves bound inside a leather cover.
"What is it?" Zak asked.
"A book," she breathed. "An actual book."
Deevee piped in. "It must be ancient. There has not been a book made in
the galaxy in a thousand years."
All writing was done on computers and the texts were stored on data
disks. It was far more convenient, but data disks weren't nearly as nice to
look at as this antique.
"Do you know what this means?" ForceFlow said excitedly. He caught Tash's
eye. "It means Mangol must have found the Jedi library. It must be around here
somewhere!"
Hoole grimaced. "That's not important right now. How did he die? What
happened?"
Deevee knelt down and examined the body carefully. "There is no evidence
of a blaster bolt, or a puncture wound. There are no bite marks. He looks too
healthy to have been ill."
"Look at his face," Domisari said. "Something scared him before he died."
Suddenly, Tash grew pale. She remembered the cold feeling of someone
touching her, the voice whispering in her ears. If the man had found the Jedi
library, she thought she knew why he was dead.
"The curse," she said softly. "It's the dark-side curse placed on the
library. That must have killed him." ForceFlow snorted. "A curse! Utter
nonsense."
"Then what did kill him?" Domisari asked.
At that moment another figure drifted into the pool of light. "What has
happened?"
Startled, the whole group turned to find Dannik Jerriko staring back: at
them.
"Someone was just killed," Hoole stated.
Zak's eyes narrowed. "Where were you?" he asked.
Dannik blinked. "I was... otherwise occupied. How did he die?"
"We don't know," Hoole answered. "There are no marks of any kind. Deevee,
do you have any information on something like this stored in your memory
banks?"
The droid paused a moment, summoning up the contents of his computer
brain. "Yes, Master Hoole. There are many accounts of mysterious deaths such
as this. In each case, the report lists no known cause of death. However..."
Deevee paused.
"Yes?" Hoole demanded.
.. many of the reports suggest that the cause of death is the Anzati."
"The Anzati," one of the treasure hunters repeated with a shudder.
The Anzati, Tash thought. They were myths. Legends. No one knew what the
Anzati looked like; no one had ever seen one and lived. No one was even sure
they existed. But everyone agreed that if they did exist, they were the most
terrifying creatures in the galaxy. They were assassins. The Anzati killed but
left no mark. Their victims simply died. No one could stop them. No one could
escape them.
"Could there be an Anzati on Nespis 8?" Zak asked.
Instead of answering him, Hoole turned to the veteran treasure hunters.
"Has anything like this happened before?"
One shook his head. "Not like this. People have disappeared, but Nespis 8
is a huge space station with lots of pitfalls. We always figured that someone
just took a wrong step."
Could it have been an Anzati? Tash thought. But even as she did, a chill
passed through her, as though someone had touched an ice cube to the back of
her neck. Again, she heard a faint whisper in her ear.
No, she thought. It's not an Anzati. It's not a living thing. It's the
curse of the library.
ForceFlow pointed at the book on the floor. "Well, he's dead and nothing
can change that. But look at the book. He must have found the library. It must
be around here somewhere!"
Hoole reached down and pried the book from Mangol's stiff fingers. But
the minute he did, the ancient book disintegrated into dust that trickled from
Hoole's open hand.
"Curious," the Shi'ido mused.
"The book must have been extremely old," ForceFlow guessed. He looked
around. "We should search for the library immediately."
Hoole stood up. "I think not. If there is an Anzati around here, we have
no way to protect ourselves. I suggest we all return to the solarium for now."
ForceFlow seemed to bristle. Some of the warmth faded from his eyes. "You
are not in charge here."
Hoole raised an eyebrow. "Neither are you. I simply suggest we put safety
first."
The others agreed, over ForceFlow's objections. Everyone was eager t
o
find the library, but they had all been disturbed by the mention of the
mysterious Anzati. If such a creature did exist, no one wanted to be its next
victim.
Carefully, they carried Mangol's body back up the narrow stairs to the
solarium. They laid his body in his camp and covered it with a spare sheet.
Hoole insisted that Tash, Zak, and Deevee return to the safety of the Shroud
until they knew just how dangerous Nespis was.
By the time she reached her own small cabin, Tash was exhausted. After
fleeing the Star Destroyers, visiting Jabba's palace, meeting ForceFlow, and
now this-she felt like a great weight was pressing down on her. But she
couldn't sleep. She was grateful when her door slid open and Zak slipped into
her room.
"Are you thinking about what happened?" he asked. "What else?" she
replied.
Zak shook his head. "I think that Dannik Jerriko has something to do with
the treasure hunter's death."
Tash sighed. "Okay, Zak. Suppose you're right and Dannik did somehow
follow us to Nespis 8, but managed to get here before us. Why would he kill a
harmless treasure hunter?"
"I don't know," her brother retorted. "But he was missing when Mangol
died. Remember how he showed up so long after we found the body? Maybe he
needed time to circle around so it looked like he'd been behind us all the
time."
Tash could only sigh. "I don't know Zak. I don't think it's..." She
hesitated.
"What?"
"I think it has something to do with the library."
"Do your feelings tell you that?" Zak asked.
"I told you, I don't trust that anymore," she said wearily. "I don't know
what those feelings mean."
Zak's eyes softened. In the past, he had made fun of Tash and her
interest in the Jedi. Now he felt a twinge of guilt. "Tash, you shouldn't say
that. Your feelings have been right before. Remember on D'vouran? You knew
something was wrong there."
Tash nodded. "I know, Zak. For a while, I thought I might be-or could be-
a Jedi. But now I think that was just a fluke. When we were on Hologram Fun
World, I didn't know what was happening even though we were in danger. Now I
just feel like I'm going crazy. That's the opposite of what a Jedi is."
Zak shrugged. "Don't worry about it, Tash. This place is gloomy enough to
get on a Jedi Master's nerves. Besides, we don't need the Force to figure
things out for us. If I'm wrong about Dannik, then we can deal with the
library when we find it. But if I'm right, and Dannik is killing people, then
a dark-side curse may be the last thing we have to worry about."
After Zak left, Tash closed her eyes. She had just started to drift off,
her mind relaxing, when...
Tash.
She opened her eyes. Had she heard someone whisper? Tash.
She sat up. Someone had spoken her name. But her cabin was empty.
Tash.
For a moment, she felt like she was on the verge of sensing something,
seeing something beyond the range of her eyes. It was like suddenly being
plugged into a computer that could tap into all the information in the galaxy
at once. Or maybe like becoming part of a starship's sensors, reaching out
hundreds of light-years into the universe.
This strange sensation suddenly made Tash feel as if she were slipping,
falling away into the cosmos. Frightened, her mind slammed shut like a blast
shield door. The voice in her head went silent.
Tash sat up and dressed quickly. Had she been dreaming? No, she was sure
she hadn't fallen asleep yet. Heart pounding, she pulled on her clothes, put
on her jacket, and slipped out of her room. Before she had shut off the
message seeping into her brain, she had gotten a single, fleeing image of
walls lined with ancient, dusty books.
The Jedi library.
Tash was tiptoeing through the solarium before she even thought about
what she was doing. She didn't care if it had been a dream or not. She had
something to prove to herself.
She remembered Deevee's words: Only a true Jedi could enter the library
and resist the dark-side curse. Finally, she could test herself She could stop
wondering. She would know, once and for all, if she had the makings of a Jedi
Knight.
She crept among the containers that marked the treasure hunters' small
camps. She could hear them snoring or grumbling in their sleep as she made her
way toward the sloping passageway. Moving quietly down the hall, Tash reached
the deep ventilation pit. She had brought a small glow rod with her and lit it
when she reached the end of the passageway. The light seemed small and weak
hanging over the huge chasm.
Tash!
The voice reached her again, so strong and urgent that she nearly slipped
over the edge of the pit.
Cautiously, Tash made her way down the narrow stairs until she reached
the lower level. She passed over the spot where Mangol's body had been found
and she shuddered. What had killed him? And was it waiting for her?
Despite her fear, Tash pressed on. She wanted to know, she needed to
know, if she had the making of a Jedi Knight.
Her small glow rod bobbed like a tiny star as she went on into the
darkness. As her light drove the darkness away, she found herself facing a
wall at the far end of the passage. Just as she was about to turn back in
disappointment, she spotted a row of six small, dark squares set into the
metal wall. They looked like small maintenance tunnels, the kind humans or
repair droids might use to crawl into the skeletal structure of the space
station.
Had Mangol gone into one of these tunnels? Which one?
Tash stood before the six openings. One of them surely led to the Jedi
library. The others could lead anywhere-she could reach a dead end, or get
lost in an endless maze of interconnecting crawlways, or maybe slide down a
chute into the depths of the abandoned station.
Tash took a deep breath. If she ever needed the Force, she needed it now.
As she stepped closer to the row of openings, a faint glimmer appeared
before the fifth one from the left. A pale thin sliver of white, the opposite
of a shadow, flickered in front of the opening, then vanished as quickly as it
had appeared.
Tash!
The whisper rolled through her head again. But was it a voice leading her
on or warning her to stay away? Tash went with her gut feeling.
She stepped through the fifth hatch and found herself in a long, low
tunnel. She could feel her heart jump higher into her throat with each step.
She was sure it was the right tunnel. She was sure that Mangol had come this
way.
Fortunately, there were no more choices to make. The tunnel plunged
straight through the heart of Nespis 8. At any moment, Tash expected it to
open up into a fabulous chamber lined with thousands of ancient Jedi
manuscripts.
Instead, the tunnel stopped.
A dead end. Tash thrust her glow rod forward to make sure she wasn't
mistaken. The light showed her nothing but a cold gray metal wall.
"No, no, no," Tash muttered. She'd been wrong
after all. She hadn't
chosen the right tunnel.
In frustration, Tash slapped her hand against the durasteel wall before
her and turned back-only to hear a soft click and the whir of machinery behind
her. Tash turned around.
The wall had vanished, sliding back into a hidden recess. She was looking
at another stretch of tunnel. Twenty or thirty meters ahead, the darkness gave
way to gray light.
She had found it.
Tash hurried forward, her fear replaced by excitement. At the end of this
tunnel she blinked for a moment in a stream of white light that spilled in
from a high-ceilinged chamber beyond.
She stepped into the light. As her eyes adjusted, she saw a large
circular room. The walls were lined with hundreds of shelves, and on the
shelves were rows and rows of ancient, dust-covered books. Two antique tables
made of carved wood stood in the center of the room, with sturdy wooden chairs
beside them.
I found it, she told herself. I found it!
In the midst of her own wonder, Tash heard the voice that had awakened
her. But this time it did not whisper. It roared around her, loud, harsh, and